“If you don’t now what you’re doing, then you’re on the right track because you’re open to the whole world of possibilities” ~ Terry Riley, composer as seen on Instagram @designerinspo.jpeg

Three blank pages notebooks full of potential and possibilities

I’ve always been a bit daunted by blank paged notebooks. What to put in them? To draw or write? Could I use ink or water colours? There are so many possibilities and permutations that it is hard to know where to start.

However, I love making books and I made my own folded sketch book to take on my recent visit to Japan. I especially love making blank notebooks for other people to fill with their own ideas and creative offerings.

These notebooks are so different from artist books which need a considerable amount of thought, planning and construction as they contain ideas which are referenced by the type of structure and materials used. I haven’t made an artist book for some years but maybe I will begin again inspired by what making blank books is teaching me.

When you are making blank paged books, you can let your creative side go wild and play. That’s what I have been doing this week and it feels like I have peeked into a world of possibilities.

I don’t know what I am doing when I start. I pull out my drawers filled with old prints and offcuts and see what shape they are. Will they make a good cover? If I fold them what sort of luscious papers can I have inside?

I’m a big fan of minimal stitching. Multiple stitched books are all a bit too exacting for me. But the simple three or five hole stitched pamphlet book is perfect for the task at hand.

Once the pages are stitched in, the exciting part comes with dreaming up a way to close the book. I have a box filled with possible closures, from old coins to cufflinks to bolts and beads. You can see the three types of closures I’ve stitched onto these three books.

Creating these little stitched books has been liberating. I’m going to make more of them to sell at different venues during the year. They don’t cost me much in materials or time and have started to shift my hands into ‘maker mode’.

I’ve got so many drawers of papers I can use up, the possibilities are endless. These are the first three off the rank with more to follow…